Sunday, January 02, 2005

A Few Random New Year's Thoughts

God Bless our military men and women around the world.

American Aid to the Tsunami Victims One week after the disaster, we now have a pretty good idea of what our government is doing, what our large corporations are doing, what many, many individuals are doing and what youth groups are doing. I’m just wondering what media organizations and columnists who were so quick to criticize others are doing?

The Missing 300 tons of explosives from Iraq Why does the media no longer seem to care? Sure was a big item just before the election. Of course you know the reason.

Sandy Berger Where is he and what’s he carrying around in his socks?

John Kerry Where is he and what does he look like in his natural state?

Blue States Secession Threats Why did this talk suddenly cease? Oh yeah, cold weather and the sombering realization for the need of home heating oil and natural gas.

My Current Favorite TV Shows C-SPAN I and II where panelists and individual intellectuals drone on and on about what the Democrat Party must do to win an election sometime in the future. My conclusion? They don’t have a clue. But don’t worry, they assure their panic-stricken audiences, they have LARGE committees working on it. Best two suggestions I’ve heard: (1)"We need a Karl Rove." (2) "We will continue to oppose Bush’s agenda at every turn". No. 1 is wishful thinking and No. 2 is just a pile of number two as far as winning over any voters.

How can I actively support Howard Dean for Chairman of the DNC?

Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd Live long and prosper, and please DON’T retire!

Christians Still wondering at the rationale the left has that religious people should not have political opinions.

George Soros makes some real bad investments in 2004.

Social Security I’m amazed how many people think that it is actually a government insurance policy. It never has been. People are still being duped on that issue by FDR after almost 60 years!

It’s going to take a special man to lead out in fixing this system that is definitely going broke in the future. Some say 18 years, some say 38 years, some say longer, but I don’t hear anyone say it won’t ultimately need fixing. Now is the time to act. President Bush is the man.

I’m still waking up every morning happy and thankful that President Bush was re-elected! An understatement if there ever was one.

AARP My wife and I are both 66. Neither of us belongs to AARP. Feels good and we don’t lose a penny on hotel discounts: The hotels always give us the discount anyway.

Unhappiness I’m continually amazed at how unhappy the ‘intelligent’ columnists like Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Sidney Blumenthal, Michael Feingold, etc. are. It’s like every silver cloud has a dark center to them. I’m pretty sure they don’t see a happy future at all thanks to all the stupid people in the red states!

Movie Ticket Prices Seems that crude prices and hence gasoline prices go up and down over time. Can anyone remember movie ticket prices ever swinging downward? Wonder why not? In todays local newspaper, the USA Magazine shows some statistical comparisons between 1985 and today. It shows over that 20 year period that gasoline (regular grade) rose from $1.20/gal avg. to $1.91/gal (although I just filled up a couple of days ago in Texas at $1.60). By comparison, the average movie ticket price increased from $3.55 to $6.26. I don’t recall any panicky headlines about the latter…strange.

In the same comparison, it showed the survivorship rate for breast cancer patients rose from 79% to 88%…..wonder if pharmaceuticals and healthcare had anything to do with that?

Similarly, during the same time period, unemployment fell from 7.2% to 5.5%….Although I think it is at 5.4% right now.

It also shows Republican representatives in Congress going way up while the Democrat representatives concurrently goes way down…. But I don’t want to bore anybody with those numbers since you all know that already.

Ex-Presidents Carter and Clinton Main difference between the two: One can build a house and one can’t.